1. Field of Invention
This application relates to computer-implemented design, and more specifically to three-dimensional (3D) presentational of pictorial characters.
2. Background
Pictorial characters such as traditional Chinese characters have been widely used in Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. Unlike the alphabetical words, each of the pictorial characters is a two-dimensional (2D) picture forming out of a sequence of stokes. There are thirty-five hundred commonly used and eighty thousand known Chinese characters. The variation and complexity of these characters can be used as building blocks in drafting and design software, which are normally deficient in ‘draw’ box design for designing building elements.
Chinese characters generally appear in two dimensions. Calligraphy style which was used in the past is still being practiced as an art form. FIG. 1a shows an extruded character, which is an example of 3D presentation in commercial advertisements or billboard designs. The thickness 17 and a portion of the character is placed in the front of the other to make it a 3D look. In general, an extruded character comprises a thickness with two-dimension character. Other Chinese characters may have been occasionally used in architectural forms in both eastern and western cultures. For example, the elevation view of a high rise building, Tuntex Sky Tower in Kao-Hsiung, Taiwan took the shape of the Chinese character shown in C1 of FIG. 1b. The floor plan of the Unity Temple, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, appears as another Chinese character shown in C2 of FIG. 2a. Both buildings took the form of an extruded character as shown in C1 of FIG. 1a, which comprises a two-dimensional character with a thickness.
Current software is either deficient in ‘draw’ box design or limited in 3D functions. Conventional computer graphic software may have good 3D presentation functionalities, however, with line, arc, donut, rectangle, polygon, etc., as basic elements in a typical drawing tool, users are often lead to a simple 3D form design. To design an intriguing and complex form, users typically rely on sketching, and model making, which is a rather time-consuming process. As such, there is still a need to further improve the design process by providing a computer aided environment, where a large amount of design constructs associated with pictorial characters may be systematically explored and presented on a computer display.